How to Easily Make Rainbow Rice Sensory Play for Toddlers

Here is your ultimate guide on rainbow rice sensory play, from how to make your own rainbow rice, to creating the perfect color sensory bin, and other colored rice sensory activities for sensory play fun!

Rainbow Rice Sensory Play is a great activity for children of all ages. It’s not only fun, but it’s also a great way to develop their motor skills and sensory awareness.

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about rainbow rice sensory play, including how to make it, the benefits of sensory play, and some creative ways to use your colored rice.

What is Rainbow Rice Sensory Play?

Rainbow rice sensory play is a hands-on activity that involves using rice in a variety of colors. The rice is typically dyed using food coloring or liquid watercolors to create a rainbow effect.

Children can use their hands, scoops, spoons, and other tools to manipulate the rice and explore its texture and color.

Rainbow Rice Sensory Play Benefits 

We all know rice play is beneficial, but did you know that rainbow rice sensory play for babies and toddlers is even more beneficial?

Rainbow rice is a fun and engaging activity that offers numerous benefits for children. Here are some of the top benefits of this colorful playtime activity:

1. Develops Fine Motor Skills: Children who engage in rice sensory play are required to use their fingers and hands to pick up, scoop, and pour the rice. This helps them develop their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
2. Encourages Creativity and Imagination: Rainbow rice encourages creativity and imagination in children as they use the rice to create different shapes and designs. It also provides a safe and non-judgmental space for children to explore their surroundings. My toddler loves to create something new each time she plays with her colored rice!
3. Improves Language Skills: During a rainbow rice sensory play activity, children may describe the colors, textures, and shapes they see. This helps improve their language skills as they learn new words, colors, and concepts!
4. Relieves Stress and Anxiety: Sensory play can be calming and therapeutic for children, and colored rice is no exception. It provides children with a safe and fun way to explore their feelings and emotions. Plus, the colors are so calming in and of itself!
5. Encourages Cognitive Development: Rainbow rice also helps children develop their cognitive skills as they explore cause and effect relationships, patterns, and concepts such as size and shape.

Overall, this is an excellent way to promote physical, cognitive, and emotional development in children while also providing them with a fun and engaging activity.

Next time you want to do sensory play for infants, try out this colored rice!

How to Make Sensory Rice 

Now that you know all the rainbow rice sensory play benefits, here is exactly how to make your own colored sensory rice!

Supplies:

• 1 or 2 bags of rice
• Ziploc sandwich bags
• Food coloring
• Cookie sheet with parchment paper on top

Instructions:

1. Please equal amount of rice in each bag. 1 put about a cup in each bag.

2. Place about 25-30 drops of food coloring in the blue, red, yellow and green bag. To make the orange color mix about 20 drops or red and 20 drops of yellow.

3. Mix the rice around in the bag until all of the rice is colored.
4. Heat your oven to 220 degrees. Place the rice on the cookie sheet with the parchment paper on top and bake for about 15-20 minutes. You want the rice to be completely dry.

5. Store in either bags or an airtight container if you have extra.

How to Make Rainbow Rice Sensory Bin

A rainbow rice sensory bin is super easy to make, and the best part is you can totally customize it to fit your kid’s like and needs!

I recently made this super easy rainbow sensory bin to help my kids learn their colors!

For a colored rice sensory bin, add in all your rice. You can either do fancy rainbow and try to keep the rice colors all separate or just combine them all. Either way, your child will mix them together while they play in their sensory rice bin, so it doesn’t really matter.

Then, you can add in all sorts of items! Add in other rainbow items to have a rainbow sensory bin, or add a variety of textures for another cool sensory bin idea.

Or, you can simply make a rainbow rice sensory bin with just the rice and some cups and containers. This will keep your toddlers entertained for hours on end!

Check out these winter sensory bins that use rice!

Other Rainbow Rice Activities 

There are countless ways to use rainbow rice for sensory play. Here are a few rainbow rice activities to enjoy with your DIY colored rice!

1. Sensory Bins

Fill a plastic bin with rainbow rice and let your child explore the different colors and textures. You can also add small toys or objects for them to discover and play with, like mentioned above.

2. Art Projects

Use rainbow rice to create colorful art projects. Your child can glue the rice onto paper to create designs or use it to fill in coloring pages.

Check out these fun rainbow crafts for toddlers.

3. Alphabet Search

Hide foam letters or alphabet beads in Rainbow Rice and challenge your child to find them all. This is a great way to practice letter recognition and fine motor skills for your older children.

4. Sensory Bottles

Another one of the fun rice sensory play ideas is to make a sensory bottle!

Fill clear plastic bottles with rainbow rice and enjoy the colors and sounds it makes as your child plays around with it.

Check out this I Spy Sensory Bottle that I made with the rainbow rice!

Rainbow Rice Sensory Bin FAQs

Rainbow Rice Sensory Play Wrap-Up

Rainbow rice sensory play is a fun and engaging activity that offers numerous benefits for children. From developing fine motor skills and encouraging creativity to improving language skills and relieving stress and anxiety, this colored rice play provides children with a safe and enjoyable way to explore their environment and promote their physical, cognitive, and emotional development.

Whether you are a parent, caregiver, or educator, rainbow colored rice is a great activity to add to your calm down corner, providing endless hours of colorful fun and learning for children of all ages.

Learn how to make other fun DIY dyed sensory materials